Singapore Expat Resigned To Being “Unable To Save Them All.”

E@L stood in the taxi queue outside of the 4FoW and another Large Expat, a wobbly stranger with a working girl on his arm, introduced himself as Bruce. His accent gave him away as one who hailed from the USoA. He smiled, at first tentatively, as if apologising for the interruption to E@L’s train of thought [that thousand yard stare of his, focussed to a vacant infinity] then hung his head as he admitted to E@L that, while he absolutely loved Singapore, he felt defeated by it.

His five-year plan to rescue all of the working girls in The Towers by giving them money for their sexual services had not reached anywhere near its anticipated pinnacle of success since he had commenced it eleven years ago. “I am unable to rescue all of the girls here,” he slurred, like a true, yet failed, saint.

In order to boost these ladies and their families out of that cruel cycle of poverty in the rural areas of South-East Asia, Colombia, Azerbaijan, and Nigeria, he had made many personal sacrifices. Towards this noble goal, selflessly, he had diverted money from his children’s education accounts in order provide reliable cash-flow to as many ladies as would give him blowjobs in the dark corners of bars such as Girl Next Door, FMH, and [most of the others too, but their names escape E@L at this time].

He had let the rent on his 38th floor penthouse apartment in Zone 11 fall behind, as the $300 tip he gave for a happy ending at one of The Towers' Chinese Massage Parlours would fed the masseuse’s family for a month [if not a year], plus it helped pay the loan for her or his breast augmentation, which he adjudged the morally superior use of his money other than to encourage Singapore landlords from extracting outrageous rents from naive expats. Twenty or so massages per month and pfft, there goes half of the rent. 

However, even though his wife had divorced him and taken what was left of his retirement nest-egg, and even though his four children refused to speak to him from their grand-parent’s house in rural Pennsylvania - he wasn’t certain they had access to technology post the 17th Century, which would explain that - he felt that he had to keep trying. 

He still had a well-paying, honest job as an FX trader and, once he economised on clothing, travel, and food other than the Thai meals on the third floor restaurant behind Club Romeo, he could come to the Towers most nights, get hammered, and pump some financial well-being into the purses of some of the Assisted Ejaculation Industry's hardest workers, before they exchanged their Singapore tourist visas for Thailand, Hong Kong, or Taiwan tourist visas.

Yes, he confessed to E@L, he had one particular girl that was special to him for the moment, and she no doubt loved him very much in return, although her memory for names was damaged through chronic tequila body-shot abuse. Her name was Suzy, and her family in Cebu were very grateful for their new tractor, although the tyres were a bit worn. Whenever Bruce had money unspent after paying for tractor tyres, or after paying board for his small room in the apartment on Joo Chiat he shared with an Australian who travelled half the time and a HK-based New Zealander who only needed her room one week a month, he would bring Suzy home for a long-time (overnight) and pretend some of the furniture and ornaments were his own property.

He admitted that when she wasn’t available (out of town or/and in someone else's bedroom), he might expand his charitable heart to encompass, in the warm glow of his alcohol fuelled lust, some of her close friends in FHM, and here he indicated the girl at his side (she had been holding her gaze steady into E@L’s eyes for quite a long time, then checked her watch and looked him in the eye again with one of her eyebrows raised in enquiry), and on occasion he brought back two at a time in order to be fair and equitable. 

Yes, he admitted, the struggle was long and any hint of success just a momentary lapse. He shook his head, groped at his girl’s buttocks and, with a half grin, half grimace, admitted again, “You can’t save them all.”

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True, but who will save

E@L

Some Old E@L Opinions, Observations and Tales

E@L was contemplating the implications for himself of the previous post so he went hunting for some of his previously stated opinions. Found these from his abandoned blog (it was crashing all the time locking people out, even E@L - moved to Blogger in 2008). Most of these snippets, if not all, are from posts in 2004 and 2005.

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One comment, not about hookers but about the legal system: Expat Nation - Farang Affairs

Ah Thailand. It'd be tragic, if it wasn't so tragic.

Just seemed appropriate.

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A classic. One of E@L's first concerning the scene... The Charisma Card

You see, with any (valid) credit card, E@L and the thousands like him, acquire the neon-halogen glow of true SuperStars, of party animals out to bring it all down! He pulls out the card and *Charisma* comes to him and flows from him, billowing behind like a cloak. Charm wraps itself all over his body - he is Mr Popular, he is Johnny Love. The crowds part, the band stops playing, the most beautiful girls turn to him, wonder who he is, whether they’ll be lucky enough to go home with him tonight. Their voices rise, entranced at the power of his presence, to call out in an irrestible song of the sirens...

"Hello. Welcome! What you like drink? Beer, Carsbuck, Hinick?"

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This post from 2004, Expatriatism! Easier to spell than antidisestablishmentarianismistically, (stupid title) is in response to the review (by Pico Ayer) of a book by an American expat in Japan. Pico, presumably paraphrasing, spoke of the expat who complained that wherever he was, he was not at home. E@L (who can count only to five in about four, no three, Asian languages [the number six just won't stay in the LTM!]) took umbrage at this, somewhat unfairly in retrospect.

Expatriatism! It's our favorite 'ism!

What does it mean for the E@L? It means a chance to experience and explore different attitudes to life, to traffic, to sexual mores, to food, to work, to worry, to family, to pretty much everything. To see things being done differently and for different reasons. To realize that an incomprehensibly varied range of motives drive the people in those countries that are not our home reference point (if we have one!) It's not in order to become like a native, for that's merely exchanging one limited world view for another. As Joyce might say, to exchange a rational and coherent mistake for an irrational and incoherent one. (Not that Australia is rational and coherent, but I had to get that quote in somehow, somewhere in my life!) The idea is to gain experience and glean insight - not necessarily to judge, though one might criticize (just might!) - maybe in order to make some more sense of why things are as they are at everybody's version of home.

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Apropos that, here's E@L complaining that Singapore is not Hong Kong (let alone Australia). Going Troppo - it had to happen!".

The fact that the restaurants and nightspots he wants to go to are shut on the weekend! The fact that it takes 7 mintues between trains and not 2 minutes. The fact that they say "6th Storey", and not "6th Floor". The fact that "Mannings" is "Guardian." The fact that taxis disappear after 10pm. The fact that Singlish is nowhere NEAR English. The fact that those taxis have manual transmission and every drive-chain in Singapore is ruined because the drivers don't understand how to use a clutch! The fact that there is nothing but a sticky, sweaty summer here. The fact that the ground is all horizontal and not vertical (there are no views!) The fact that it has the death penalty and the cane and no-one cares. The fact that the entire place looks like a golf course - step out of bounds and it's a two stroke penalty. The fact that everyone is only concerned with getting E@L's money...

The touts come at him... "Like some more?" says the one at the next restaurant ... " Have an Indian dessert., sir" ... "Chinese, Thai, Chili crab." ...

"Get ... out ... of .. my ... WAY!"

His voice rises...

"FUCK! I HATE THIS FUCKING TOWN!"

He hasn't? He has. He has vocalised that. He said that out loud. Out VERY loud.

He smiles at some tourists, walking towards him, slowing down, staring at him... He frowns.

The touts step back. They've witnessed such breakdowns before.

Tourists think: "Mmm. The local madman. Gone troppo, not doubt. Every town out here has one. Yes, the humid charm of the Quaint Orient takes it toll and here is one of it's victims! It's all that gin, to fight the malaria, destroys the brain too! Say, let's buy some chili crab, as this honest looking waitress is offering a meal at what promises to be a discount rate!"

Woah, stand back from this lunatic. No, it's OK it's safe to near him now, he won't bite. His medication, not Inderal as mentioned in the post, but the mood stabiliser Lamitrogine, which fortunately and off-label kills 95% of his peripheral neuropathy agony, and perhaps seven years of acculturation have tamed this beast down. Mostly. Unfortunately for the popularity of this blog, he has calmed down a lot since then.

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This post, A common HK expat pastime..., is also from 2004 (when E@L was almost articulate). Not so much in Singapore as domestic helpers do not necessarily get a day off (you should read some the tales told by domestics looking for new employment - damn, lost the link) as they do in Hong Kong, the following is more applicable up there. E@L has now heard of it as called The Tea-Party (nothing related to that misguided bunch of billionaire-funded tax-avoiders in USA - Note: E@L is legitimately not required to pay tax in Australia).

A good part of the Sunday afternoon and early evening of many a Hong Kong male expat is taken up with prowling Neptune II, New Makati, Fenwicks, Dusk Till Dawn and the like in Wanchai for prospective replacement maids. ...

This sort of behaviour of the male expat does entail a fair whack of double-think, because he knows he is being used, just as he knows that he is doing a great deal of the traditional colonial-style, white-man's-burden "using". It's not so much repicrocal altruism as mutual exploitation. No money changes hands in the usual scenario, but there is a debt incurred and a debt repaid. The girl gets a day in a decent flat, even if she does have to clean it up, she gets a bit of (let's face it, girls need their lovin') sexual attention and simulated affection - which is a lot more than she gets during the rest of the week (unless "Madam" has a headache and "Sir" is feeling horny) - and she gets the chance to plead her case for rescue. The guy gets his flat cleaned up and his seminiferous tubules purged. Win-win.

And so the world advances. Well it rotates anyway.

Never was successful there, never tried very hard. All that conversation... As the pundits sing: "You couldn't score in Wanchai!"

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Here are E@L and Bruce, um, E@L means Bruce and another Bruce, trudging through Bintan in search of a mythical pub and finding an Indonesian version of the fish-bowl: The Quest,

L-G[aka Bruce], being a more hardened campaigner, checks out the age, looks, and size of the women on offer. He asks the eventual question and is shocked. Here in this grimy, peeling-paint, malodorous sex-slave camp, the broken-smiled, cigarette-reeking, oily-haired boys-in-charge are asking tourists such us E@L [aka Bruce] and L-G to pay for a forced shag on some stained and uncomfortable mattress in a noisome room upstairs a price that could be easily be negotiated in the comfort and sophistication (tongue-in-cheek) of Orchard Towers in Singapore and for much prettier, more intelligent and enthusiastic (the benefit of free-enterprise) companions de nuit at the accommodation of your choice. Even L-G abandons the idea of utilizing this offensive and unethical establishment and comes outside to find E@L seeking further enlightenment as to where the more conventional and somehow less tacky and exploitative local outlets of the Assisted Ejaculation Industry are located.

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E@L is again pinpointed as a sex-tourist. And he's only at the airport! Scenes Of The Crimes:

Walking up to the counter for a Limo-taxi, the girl immediately asked "Taxi, Pattaya?" Yep, even disguised with a long-sleeve shirt, long trousers, socks and shoes, E@L still exudes the aura of a depraved sex-tourist.

Ah, the ineluctable tyranny of stereotyping for the foreign fat-man.

He fired her a rather fierce look and said, "Klong Tooee, Conrad Hotel, karp koon krap."

"Oh, you bin Thailand before? Speak Thai?"

"Nit noi," he mumbled, rapidly approaching the end of the line for his Thai language 'skills'... He paid his 700Bht for instant access to a clean car that shouldn't break down, and took off for town.

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[Addendum] OK. One more. Unscientific Research (slight return)

And so. Here he is. Fat, forty-something, bald, single. In a sexually charged environment. He is a stereotype. A cliche. Someone's vision of all that's wrong with Asia. His own vision from not that many years ago, in fact. He has become his own worst nightmare. At least he is not cheating on a wife somewhere. The X said recently to him that she was amazed that he could even contemplate doing the things he does now. He would never have gone into a brothel, she says, when she knew him. And she was right. There are early E@L stories of transactions declined, and anecdotes of great mirth concerning such exploits. He hates himself for exploiting women; he hates men who exploit women; he hates how men can cheat on their girlfriends and wives so easily so blatantly. He knows that sex is not good enough reason, no matter how one rationalizes it. Deep down he knows this. Is he right? Or is Dr Kinsey? ...

... Anyone can look quickly into a crowd here and only see the old, fat guys with their chicks, because they are the ones that fit your prejudice, that fit your anticipated result... But if you try hard and actually COUNT them...

So, here are the stats for the first six guys that walk past with a slim, semi-dressed local girl :

Age:
20s - 3,
30s - 2,
40s or higher - 1

Weight:
Slim - 5,
Pudgy - 0,
Fat - 1

Appearance:
Normal - 4,
Little Bit Weird - 1,
Out There - 1 (Kris Kristofferson in Blade look-alike)

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Aiya, Jesus wept... E@L is crying here. OK, you get the idea. Giving up at this point, it's lunch-time. How many of these post are there? Too many? Not enough? Put 'em into a book man!

E@L

Here Now!

The future of masturbation!



E@L's perineal, sorry, he means personal fave, the discreetly named Flip-Hole.


Quote "If it could cook and do housework it would be the ideal woman replacement. Hats off to the inventor of this little marvel.” /Quote

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Ah, the AEIJ (Assisted Ejaculation Industry of Japan), it never ceases to amaze and amuse, horrify and terrify, make shake your head, tuck those soiled school-girl knickers back into your pocket and mumble....


WHAT

THE

FUCK?


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OK true confession time.

E@L admits that he DOES have a masturbation aide. Her name is Ms W***. She's cute, a real person, Malaysian, skillful like you have no idea, weighs about 47kg and she makes a lot of money at the H**** R**** massage parlor.

Maybe one day Bruce (who put E@L on to the place) will detail those skills.

E@L